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WHAT JOHN SMITH THINKS OF HANS SCHMIDT
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and in all parts of the nation. A middle-aged prosperous looking physician in Maine used almost the same words as a copper miner in Montana.
Each said: "Yes, of course, Fm fighting the German people. Who else would we be fighting? Why charge it up to their leaders? If the German people didn't want Nazism, they wouldn't have it."
Out of the mouths of other Jolin Smiths (and Dorothy Smiths as well) come certain constantly repeated phrases: ". . . fighting Hitlerism and his form of government . . . the people are victims . . . the people are subjugated . . . the people are all right, they produced luxuries and scientific things . . . some of the Germans are just as much against the war as we are . . . no, I like the German people very much ... I am very proud of the German blood in jme . .
These expressions are by no means confined to the Middle West. They are to be heard from people one asks at random in the New England states, in the South and on the Pacific coast. I did find, however, that they were expressed with greater frequency in the states of the Middle West.
Other John Smiths, in the Middle West and in other regions of the country, have a deep prejudice against the Germans, even despite their German blood.
There was the Ohio steel worker for example, a second generation American of German descent. "Sure, I'm fighting German people, and any
cousins I might have over there. The German people have been going mad for about a hundred years. They are mad dogs, and that's all there is to it."
John Smith's confusion as to our purposes in fighting this war also spills over into his attitude toward Hans Schmidt. Talking with people at random over the country, you get an overwhelming impression of the absence of agreement on why the war is being fought. This benefits Hans Schmidt because as a result of our confusion, Hans emerges as a shadowy person, even someone worthy of pity and, in any event, deserving of understanding.
Many a John Smith is still victimized by the clever propaganda job done by the Germans on the Treaty of Versailles. Hans Schmidt, they say, is really not a bad fellow and if the German people had been given better treatment then, we would not have this war now.
It is not that our John Smiths — or most of them — have any ingrained objection to fighting the people of a country. The proof is that a majority of Americans, about seventy-five percent of those I talked with, told me they are fighting the people of Japan.
Some John Smiths impressed me as being too busy nursing a hatred for the Japanese to be able to engender much emotion over Hans Schmidt. Of course, on the Pacific Coast the concern to whip Japan is much greater than it is elsewhere. Yet I did not find the attitude there toward the Germans very dissimilar to that in other parts of the United States.